Background
Augusto Bernardino Leguía was born in Lambayeque on 19 February 1863.
Augusto Bernardino Leguía was born in Lambayeque on 19 February 1863.
He completed his early education in an English school in Val¬paraiso, Chile.
Although short and very thin, he first applied his great energy to business. He was successively general manager of the Peruvian and Ecuadorean branches of the New York Life Insurance Company; exporter of hides to the United States and Chile; Peru’s manager of the British Sugar Company Limited founded in London in 1896; president of the Board of Directors of the Compañía de Seguros Sudamérica which he founded in Lima in 1900; and president of the National Bank of Peru.
Leguia served twice as minister of finance (1903-1904 and 1904-1907); the second time he was also prime minister. His prestige in the Partido Civil led to his election to the presidency in 1908 to a four-year term. When he broke with the oligarchic Partido Civil, he was exiled by President José Pardo in 1913. After six years of business activities in Great Britain and the United States,
Leguía returned to Peru to run for the presidency as an independent. In 1919 he won the election, but he staged a preventive coup to begin his second term in office. He remained in power for 11 years, thanks to his manipulated reelections in 1924 and 1929.
He died in a Lima jail.
He promulgated the Constitution of 1920, but interpreted constitutional law so as to govern in an autocratic manner. He made a token gesture toward decentralized power by creating three regional legislatures to deal with nonvital provincial matters. He maintained good relations with the Catholic church, and in 1923 had the country officially dedicated to the Sacred Heart, a move that caused widespread protest, particularly among students and workers.
During his dictatorship, Leguía attempted to check the power of the old artistocratic oligarchy while encouraging the rise of a new financial and commercial oligarchy. He multiplied the national debt tenfold by obtaining loans in the United States. After the economic Depression of 1929 dried up investments, his administration began to weaken until an army revolt in Arequippa forced Leguía to resign.
